Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, millions of former soviet citizens crossed the national borders in search of better lives in new countries, in what was the biggest migration tide since the end of World War II. These Post-Soviet migrants were diverse in origins, strategies and expectations. They often represented a challenge to the orthodox views of migration processes, since in most cases these flows could not be easily described and analysed following commonly accepted theoretical frameworks. Everybody seemed to be on the move: labour migrants, political refugees, cross-border traders, “tourists” planning to forget their return... and in a short period, they spread all over Western Europe.

2nd World Conference of the Association for Borderlands Studies - Panel

In view of the current political developments in Europe, the scientific study of borders has increasingly gained importance. Cultural Studies has reacted to these developments by generating complex and more and more detailed theories and tools for describing and analyzing border phenomena. Cultural border studies champion approaches which do not examine spatial, material, temporal or cultural aspects in isolation but investigate their intersectional and performative interactions. This panel provides a space for explorative investigation of potential approaches for cultural border studies, focusing on interactions between material and immaterial manifestations of the border.

2nd World Conference of the Association for Borderlands Studies - Panel

The societal events of the last decade have challenged Border Studies more than ever before. This can be seen not only in the field’s growing institutionalisation but also in its developments in research: these include the relativization of geopolitical perspectives by cultural studies approaches, the spatialisation of the border concept (e.g. zone, third space, exter/internalisation etc.), the decentralisation of the border in favour of processes (e.g. b/ordering, othering etc.), the pluralisation of the border concept (e.g. walls, differences, (dis)continuities, demarcations) or the complexification of the border (e.g. scapes, textures). The panel is treating these developments and other turns as an opportunity for a long-overdue self-examination, which in the light of the resurgence of borders seems necessary from both a societal and scientific perspective.

Further to the first Europe-Asia conferences exploring regional regime dynamics (France, 2004), policies of regional cooperation (Korea, 2005), interregional competition (France, 2012) and the limits of regional constructions (Kazakhstan, 2014), this 2016 edition will look at the reciprocal understanding of regions and how that is conducive to their capacity (or lack thereof) to monitor crises they undergo, both specific crises and interregional ones. Papers must address original research, in regional dynamics of Asia and Europe, since the end of the cold war and focus on one area among.

A huge variety of cases involving the interaction of different ethnic/racial groups (in recent history up to the present day) and resulting in tension, conflict, disillusionment, discrimination, etc., have been the subject of extensive social research worldwide. Thus, thousands of scholarly works have been written about the intricacies of the acceptance and integration of immigrants who are racial, ethnic and/or confessional ‘others’ in relation to host populations. Alongside this, there are many examples of co-ethnics’ interaction which are also, overtly or latently, accompanied by intra-group conflict, tension and misunderstanding. Academic coverage of co-ethnics’ encounters is far less ‘mature’ in terms of conceptualization, and literature devoted to these issues is far less abundant.

Intra-Group Tensions After the Fall of Communism: Causes, Consequences, and Contexts

Much has been written about the intricacies of acceptance and integration of immigrants who are racial, ethnic and/or confessional ‘others’ in relation to host populations. There are many examples of co-ethnics’ interaction which are overtly or latently accompanied by intra-group conflict, tension and misunderstanding, but academic coverage of co-ethnics’ encounters is far less ‘mature’ in terms of conceptualization, and literature devoted to these issues is far less abundant. The pattern of peoples' interaction being studied is usually a result of various kinds of population movement provoked by serious socio-political cataclysms in the 20th and 21st centuries, including the collapse of multi-national states and the intensification of labor migration resulting from post-socialist economic transformation. Our aim is to bring together international scholars who could present results of their latest research on these topics, preferably from a comparative and/or micro-level perspective.

This workshop is bringing together specialists from mostly Eastern Europe together with some West European partners, capable and liable of sharing their localised research expertise in the study of the birth and initial development of national systems of elite training in a number of (mostly but not exclusively) small East Central European societies. All of them have very concrete empirical research agendas and records in these fields, but separately, applied to their own national societies. The idea of the meeting is born from the need of and the interest in comparing – in many thematic issues term by term – research findings, insights and questions gained from studies of the training, career and activities of various East European elite groups during the decades up to the Soviet take-over.